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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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UW' RA 1 1 QIM 4 L; ^^ Y M N 



BY 



R EV. S.r. SMITH 








D.LOTHROP ?A Co.. 
BOSTON. 



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Copyright, 18S4. 

D. LOTHROP AND CoMPANY. 



Presmcuflc liij JiockntU. and C/iiirc/iUt, JSoston. 



TO ALL AMERICANS 




ilO.ML ur KEV. DR. S. F. SMITH. 



THE AUTHOR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 







s 



THE FAVORITE CORNER. 



AMUEL FRANCIS SMITH, the author of our 
National Hymn, "America," was born in a house 
then standing near the head of Sheafe street, at the North 
End, Boston, under the sound of old Christ Church chimes, 
Friday, October 21, 1808. He was a pupil, for a season, in 
the Flliot School, and stood at the head of it for the last 
year or more of his attendance there. At that early 
period, "the divine fervor" began to breathe within him. 
and though he left the school when he was but eleven 
years of age, he had already become an author of verses which still are held in 
memory by loving friends. He might have said with Pope : " I lisped in numbers, 
for the numbers came." 

From the Eliot School he was transferred to the Latin School, in 1820. Here, ac- 
cording to the custom of the school, in due time he committed to memory all the 
Eclogues of Virgil and the odes of Horace in Latin, and all the odes of Anacreon 
in Greek, besides many other extended passages in these and other Greek and Latin 
authors. The late revered Mr. Benjamin A. Gould, then head master, issued dur- 
ing this period his edition of Virgil, which continues from time to time to be printed. 
It was for this publication that the young student voluntarily "scanned" the whole 
of Virgil, " Bucolics," ■' Georgics " and " /-Eneid," marked every irregularity and exception in 
prosody, and wrote out a full explanation for the benefit of future pupils. He was 
a Franklin medal scholar at the Latin School, and also received, the same year, a gold 
medal for an English poem. He entered Harvard College in 1825, in the same class 
with Oliver Wendell Holmes, the late Judges Benjamin R. Curtis and George T. Bigelovv, 



THK AUTHOR OF OUR XATIONAL HVMX. 

the Reverends James Freeman Clarke, Chandler Robbins, William IC. Channing and 
Samuel May, and Professor Benjamin Pierce. The Honorable Josiah Ouincy became presi- 
dent of the University in their last year. During his residence at Cambridge, our young 
student successfully studied the French, Spanish, German and Italian languages, and 
commenced Hebrew, to which, in later years, he has added several others. Here he was 
brought into contact with the celebrated German professors. Doctors Pollen and Francis 
Lieber, and wrote out a translation, in his leisure hours, of many hundreds of pa:ges 
of the German " Conversations-Le.xicon," the basis of the "Cyclopaedia Americana." 
The elegant scholar, George Ticknor, was then Professor of Modern Languages : 
Charles Sumner (1830), John Lothrop Motley and Wendell Phillips (1^30 were in 




PO( TOR smith's STUD^". 



the two subsequent classes. From Cambridge Mr. Smith passed to the Andovci- Theo- 
logical Seminary. Professor Stuart and his early colleagues in the Seminar\" were then 
at the height of their usefulness and fame. In his own class was his earlv fiiend 
and associate, the Reverend Doctor Riggs, of Constantinople, the accomplished scholar 
and revered missionary, and these two young associates, after a separation of forty-nine 
years, had the privilege, in October, 1881, of meeting again and spending a few days 
of delightful intercourse together, in the city of the Sultan — choice hours, never to 
be forgotten. In the class before Mr. Smith was the since renowned theologian, 
Professor Park ; in the class after him, the late Professor Hackett ; and in the class 
with him, Munson and Lyman, the missionaries murdered in Sumatra in 1834. of whom 
the former was, for a season, his pupil in botany. 



THE AUTHOR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 

After graduating in 1S32, Mr. Smith engaged for a year in editorial labor. In 
February, 1S34, he was ordained to the work of the ministry in Waterville, Me., be- 
coming at the same time pastor of the Village Baptist Church, and Professor of 
Modern Languages in the college, since Colby University. His service here con- 
tinued eight years, after which he removed to Newton Centre, Mass., which has ever 
since been his home. For seven years he was editor of the "Christian Review," 
and for twelve and a half years, until July, 1S54, he was also pastor there. 

Hymns from the pen of Mr. Smith are found in the hymn books of all Christian 
denominations. One of his best known missionary hymns, " The Morning Light is 
\ Breaking," has been translated into many languages. " The Psalmist," a hymn-book 
used almost universally and exclusively in the Baptist churches of the United States 
for thirty years, a book mainly compiled by him, contained, through the apprecia- 
tive intervention of his associate editor, about thirty of Doctor Smith's compositions. 
The latter marked them all out in proof ; but Doctor Baron Stow, his co-editor, hav- 
ing made timely discovery of the mutilation, instantly restored them. Doctor Smith 
has been often named " the James Montgomery of America." Mr. Lowell Mason 
published, in 1832, the "Juvenile Lyre," containing songs and music for children — 
the first book of children's music ever issued in the United States. Most of the 
songs in this book were written by Mr. Smith, being imitations from the German. 

During his subsequent history, he has been occupied in general literary pursuits, 
and in editorial labor, largely in the service of Christian Missions, to which he has 
seen a useful and honored son devote himself with great energy and success in the 
Burman empire. 

^ Doctor Smith has been a writer for the press from the time he was twelve or thir- 
teen years of age. His most important publications are a "History of Newton," 
" Missionary Sketches," and " Rambles in Mission Fields." 

Mr. Edwin P. Whipple has observed that " Some of the most popular and most 
V quoted poems in our literature are purely accidental hits, and their authors are rather 
nettled than pleased that their other productions should be neglected while such 
prominence, is given to one" — instancing T. W. Parsons, and his "Lines on a Bust 
of Dante." It was once intimated to me by a member of Doctor Smith's family, not 
that the author of "America" desired prominence for other strokes of his pen, but 
• that he was sometimes a little weary with that accorded to the one which is so 
V often and so heartily sung. But Mr. Smith has probably settled down to his fate, 
with which it would be particularly vain to strive, since the frequent occasions of 
using the national hymn furnished by the war have been so quickly followed 
by those of patriotic centenary observances. Very appropriately, too, the effort to 
save the Old South Church in Boston has enlisted our poets, drawing attention to 
the history of some of their early famous poems, and thus seated these all the 
more firmly in popular interest. Long will be remembered, by all who were so 
fortunate as to attend it, the entertainment given in those old walls on the evening 
of May 4th, 1877. Governor Rice presided, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Ralph 



THE AUTHOR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 

Waldo Emerson, and Doctors J. F. Clarke, S. F. Smith, and O. W. Holmes, the 
three college classmates, all read and spoke on the occasion. 

Doctor Smith told the story of "America." The late Mr. William C. Woodbridge, 
he said, brought from Germany, many years ago, a number of books used in schools 
there, containing words and music, and committed them to the late Doctor Lowell 
Mason, who placed them in Doctor Smith's hands, asking him to translate anything he 
might find worthy, or, if he preferred, to furnish original words to such of the 
music as might please him. It was among this collection that, on a gloomy Feb- 
ruary day in 1832, the student at Andover found its present music attached to a 
patriotic hymn, and under the inspiration at once brought into being America's 
"National Hymn." Much discussion has occurred in England as to the origin of 
this air, which, in 18 15, it is said, served for the national anthem in England, in 
Prussia, and in Russia, it being superseded in the latter country only about a gener- 
ation ago. "Like the English constitution," remarked the Daily Nc'vs, "it has gone 
through a series of developments, and such a history is not unbecoming in the case 
of a truly national air." It has sometimes been claimed that Handel composed and 
introduced it into England, but the researches of Chappell, and of the Germans, 
Fink and Chrysander, Handel's biographers, agree in ascribing the original strain 
to the Englishman, Henry Carey (169 i743)- 

It has been suggested that the United States ought to have music of her own, 
adapted to her own national hymn. But we suggest that there is a beauty in this 
marrying of the interests of the motherland and the daughterland in their patriotic 
music, one furnishing the words and the other the tune, and so united together, 
hand in hand, they travel together down the ages. 

The hymn, written without the slightest purpose to produce a national lyric, 
was almost immediately taken up by the people, because it appealed to the popu- 
lar heart. It was first produced on a festive occasion at a children's celebration 
of the anniversary of American Independence, at Park Street Church, July 4, 1832. 
Very soon it found its way into district schools, and Sabbath-schools, and patriotic 
gatherings throughout the country. A friend of the author's, long years before the 
civil war, heard it warbled by some little children on the doorsteps of a settler's cabin 
in Texas. It was welcomed as part of the patriotic literature of the country. A 
delegation from the Boston Board of Trade sang it together at the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains. It has been echoed from the ridges of Pike's Peak and Gray's 
Peak. It has been used at the American celebrations of July 4th and of the New 
England Thanksgiving, by pilgrims in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Constantinople, 
Calcutta, Canton, and the islands of the Pacific. It was sung on all patriotic occa- 
sions, and sad or rejoicing gatherings, during the civil war, as a stimulus to courage and 
an expression of fervent purpose — in hospitals, in prisons, in the camp, in the 
field, and at religious services. Repeatedly has its music sounded out on ocean 
steamers on the broad Atlantic. The author's college friends — the Class of '29 — for 
fifty years, at their annual dinners, invariably made it the lirst song that was sung, 



The author of our national hymn. 

until, a year or two only ago, their voices refused their youthful harmony, and music 
necessarily gave place to poetry and the conversation of kindred companions. It was 
once the author's privilege to hear and join in it, as one of the after-lunch recrea- 
tions of a company of Americans in one of the excavated baths of Pompeii. 

Before Doctor Smith fulfilled his part on the programme at the Old South entertain- 
ment above alluded to, by reciting "America," he said that on returning from a 
year's wandering in Europe, some time since, he was asked if any country had sup- 
planted his own in his regard. To this inquiry, he read to the audience a poetical 
reply entitled "My Native Land." It contains si.x stanzas, of which the following 
are the first and third : 

We wander far o'er land and sea, 

We seek the old and new, 
We try the lowly and the great. 

The many and the few ; 
O'er States at hand and realms remote, 

With curious quest we roam, 
But find the fairest spot on earth 

Just in our native home. 



We seek for landscapes fair and grand. 

Seen through sweet summer haze, 
Helvetia's mountains, piled with snow, 

Italia's sunset rays, 
And lake, and stream, and crag, and dell. 

And new and fairer flowers — 
We own them rich and fair — but not 

More grand, more fair than ours. 



Doctor Smith has twice visited the Old World, The first time he spent one year in 
Europe, and the second more than two years, extending his journey to the Barman 
empire, and lingering in Madras, Calcutta and Ceylon in Asia, and in Norway, 
Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Erance, and Spain in 
Europe. 

The above stanzas have been given as a natural preface to a slight sketch of Doctor 
Smith's surroundings in the town where he dwells ; for though he speaks in them 
of the beauties of his whole country, yet it may well be believed that the land- 
scape charms of Newton Centre, as well as forty years of residence there, conspire 
to make it, for him, the dearest spot in the land. 

Says Professor George H. Whittemore, from whom part of this sketch is taken : " The 
landscape tempts us out of doors, but first we will glance about the poet's home. 
Leaving the parlor, we cross the hall and pass into a drawing-room, in rear of 
which is a side-entrance passage, beyond which is another pleasant apartment. In 
the rear of the room first entered, containing various souvenirs of missionary interest 
and European and Asiatic travel, and one bookcase, is the library proper, which has its 



THE Aim [OR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 



walls, where the books allow them to be seen at all, covered with a warm scarlet 
paper. The heat diffused over the house by a furnace can, at any time, for com- 
fort or delight, be re-inforced by the open fires which poets especially love for their 
reveries. Whoever is welcomed to the dining-room of this hospitable home will 
find good cheer and quaint china. The mention of the last recalls to me that in 
the parlor is a relic of that possessed by Charles Sumner, and given to Doctor Smith 

by his friend the Honorable William Claflin. 
When Doctor Smith alluded, in his modest 
way, to the attentions paid to him in a 
visit to Washington, in October, 1877, 
about which I had read in the papers, 
I could only think, 'Who, if not he, 
should be an honored guest in the cap- 
ital of the nation } ' Certainly there is 
no other man among us whose words 
are so often read and sung, East and 
West, North and South — thrilling all 
the instincts of patriotism. 

" The study is full of interesting 
objects. The large picture suspended 
above the open grate is a very old and 
beautiful painting of the Holy Family, 
by one of the old masters — perhaps a 
Murillo — in excellent preservation. The 
stone lion on the right side of the grate is a carving, a foot and a half in height, 
brought from the steps of an idol temple in Burmah, where it stood guard in for- 
mer years. On the opposite side is a reclining Buddh, of polished marble, rare and 
very beautiful, from the same country. On the top of the bookcase, on the opposite 
side of the library, is a small but very fine bust of Milton ; on the right, a massive 
elephant's tooth, and on the left, the skull of a man-eating tiger, which in his 
lifetime was known to have feasted on the flesh of several victims. On one of the 
two bookcases on the intermediate side of the library is a sitting Buddh, carved 
in white marble. The tall, old-fashioned clock in one of the corners has been an 
heirloom in the family a hundred and twenty years. The most-used chair in .the 
room was the property, more than a hundred years ago, of a clergyman of the northern 
part of Middlesex County. The straw chair with projecting arms did service several 
years in the town of Rangoon in Burmah. A very beautiful slipper, of Dresden 
china, does duty as a pen-holder on the centre-table. Engravings cover most of the 
walls not hidden by the bookcases; the most interesting being Fere Hyacinthe and 
Hengstenberg, the commentator on the Psalms. 

"This dwelling 'hath a pleasant scat.' It faces the east, is moderately retired 
from the street, and is upon an elevation gently rising for some distance, up which 




REV. DR. S. F. SMITH. 



THE AUTHOR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 



sweeps, in a graceful curve, the public road. Following this in its descent, and then 
almost to the top of a lesser acclivity, one comes to a rural church ideally 
situated, and forming, amid its trees, an attractive sight across the pretty vale from 
the northern side of Doctor Smith's home. This view is English in its quiet grace 
and natural beauty. 

" Returning now by the road, and going on past the house again, a spacious village 
green is passed, and you come to another church, the one over which Doctor Smith 
was many years settled, fit in position to gladden an American George Herbert. 
It is embowered in a corner where roads cross on the broad plain from which rises, 
on the left of the main road we have trodden, a long and high hill. This is crowned 
by the buildings of the Newton Theological Institution. One who toils up the wind- 
ing tree-lined avenue will be rewarded by reaching an eminence which will bear com- 
parison with that where was once the old Ursuline Convent of Charlestown, or 
with Andover's plateau and elegant shades, or the delightful crests of Amherst. 
On the west, the view is particularly fine. Doctor Hackett used to compare it to that 
from the Acropolis of Athens. On the horizon rise Monadnock and Wachusett, 
with many a town and village between. At your foot are the churches and a beauti- 
ful little sheet of water, which, with the mount on which we are standing, gives 
the situation some claim to be regarded as an American miniature 'Lake District.' 
Sailing or rowing out upon it, and looking up the height, the scene is German or 
Italian in its bold 
and romantic character. 
The hues in the stone 
of the chapel, and its 
architecture, embracing 
a heavy tower, give it, 
set upon the wooded 
hill, an air of age, and 
recall the castle sites 
on Como, or one of 
those still inhabited re- 
ligious establishments 
which rise upon the 
banks of the Danube. 

" Not very far from 
the water is the former 
home of Doctor Hackett, and following west the road upon which it lies, towards 
Brooklawn, the country seat of Governor Clafflin, the traveller first comes to the portal 
of the cemetery in which the scholar now reposes. Doctor Smith has chosen a final 
resting-place here among the urns of this and other friends. None could wish for 
them, or for himself, a fairer spot. It is a good place for the dawn of the immortal 
morning on him who wrote, ' The morning light is breaking.' 




HOME OF REV. DR. S. F. SMITH, NORTH SIDE. 



THE AUTHOR OF OUR NATIONAL HYMN. 

" Tliere is little, in meeting Doctor Smith, to remind one of such thoughts ; but the 
famous Harvard class of ' Twenty-nine ' has sung the words, ' My Country 'tis of 
thee,' a half-century, and Doctor Holmes is beginning to speak of his own failing voice. 
Gently may he and his classmates fail and fade from their activities ; distant yet be 
the day when those who knew him of whom this paper has spoken, shall stand and 
muse : — 

Here lies who hymned America; to sing or preach, 
Dante's suggestive words our question's tribute teach, 
Where was "a better smith of the maternal speech?" 



" Doctor Smith's fame is abroad as well as at home. His hymns are in some of 
the church collections of the mother country. A resident of Glasgow recently said 
to him in a complimentary letter, 'Among the people of Scotland, you are as 
highly respected as our own Doctor Horatius Bonar ; and in our family circle, you 
are certainly by no means a stranger.' 

" Doctor Smith's home has lost one who, for nearly forty years, was its honored and 
beloved inmate. Mrs. Ann VV. Smith, the mother of his wife, died August 20, 
1878. Born July 28, 1786, a sister of the eminent judge, the late Honorable Daniel 
Appleton White, and married almost seventy years previously, this venerable lady 
carried one's thoughts back to the early days of the elder Ouincy and Webster, 
Dana and Bryant, and Madame Patterson Bonaparte. At ninety-two, however, her 
interest in life was keen, and her beauty of spirit, fitly enshrined in a noble figure, 
looked forth from a face round, full and fair. The writer will ever remember the 
honor and pleasure of handing Madame Smith to breakfast, in her son-in-law's home, 
two months previous to her death, just before the family left Newton for their 
cottage by the sea. It was there, where she was accustomed to bathe with much 
zest, that, a few weeks later, she had a fall which soon proved fatal to the body. 



and freed the soul, of the aged Christian." 



G. H. W. 




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My country, 'tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 

Land where my fathers died, 

Land of the pilgrims' pride, 

From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring. 




My native country 

thee, 

Land of the noble, 
free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 



Thy woods and templed hills ; 

My heart with rapture thrills. 
Like that above. 




I J.OVE THV KUCKS AND KILLS, 
THY WOODS AND TEMPLED HILLS. 




Let music swell 

the breeze, 
And ring from all 

the trees 
Sweet freedom's song : 
Let mortal tongues awake, 



Let all that breathe partake, 

Let rocks their silence break, ' .-^ 
The sound prolong. 




Our fathers' God, to thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing: 
Long may our land be bright 

With freedom s holy light , 

Protect us by thy might. 
Great God, our King. 




THE PILGRIMS. 

December 22, 1620. 

They left old England's cultured homes, 
Its broad green fields, its sunny skies, 

Its tall cathedrals, spires and domes, 
As the first pair left Paradise. 

They found a forest, wild and bleak, 
Cold, threatening skies and frozen sod, 

Brave, noble souls, resolved to seek 
Deliverance from the oppressor's rod. 

They left the dear ancestral shrines. 
The altars where their fathers bowed. 

Graves where their hallowed dust reclines, 

The fields they reaped, the hills they ploughed. 



They found a stormy, cheerless coast 
Swept by fierce winds and savage men. 

Nature's rude growth, the heathen's boast. 
The rock-bound shores, the wild beast's den. 



THE PILGKJMS. 

Yet came they fearless, boltl and brave, 

Not theirs to bow to men the knee ; 

Unfettered as the ocean wave, 

God's freemen, wliom tlie truth made free. 

The wintry forests' dim defiles 

Woke, their triumphant ]5salms to hear; 

And rocks, and hills, and distant isles 

Echoed their pilgrim hymns of cheer. 

O wise to plan, O justly famed ! 

O strong in patient faith to wait ! 
These are the noble sires who framed 

And built New England's early state. 





THE FLAG IN NATURE. 



All nature sings wildly the song of the free, 
The red, white and blue float o'er land and oer sea, 
The white — in each billow that breaks on the shore, 
The blue — in the arching that canopies o'er 
The land of our birth, in its glory outspread — 
And sunset dyes deepen and glow into red ; 
Day fades into night, and the red stripe retires, 
But stars o'er the blue light their sentinel fires; 
And though night be gloomy, with clouds overspread, 
Each star holds its place in the field overhead ; 
When scatter the clouds and the tempest is through, 
We count every star in tlie field of the blue. 




THE FLAG. 

Wave the new flag, exultant, o'er the land, 

Spread out its folds of beauty toward the sea; 

Bid softest winds its blood-bought charms expand ; 
Hail it with shouts — the banner of the free. 

Bears it the brilliant stripes of spotless white.'' 

Our cause is righteous and oiu" aim is pure ; 

Bears it the red? — We battle for the right — 

Red blood may flow, but freedom shall endure. 

Bears it the blue ? — To heaven our high appeal 
In Christian gratitude and faith we raise; 

And every star — a new-made State — shall seal 
Our fervent trust in God, our joyful praise. 

Count all the stars, the stripes botli white and red, 
Where'er on sea or land the flag is seen, 

They tell how God our growing States has led — 
Stars, ever more ; and stripes, the old thirteen. 



Wave, then, fair banner — men may pass away, 
No mind can guess the changes yet to be ; 

But thou, in beauty hold thy blessed way. 
Our flag of peace — our symbol of the free. 




LEXINGTON. 

1776 — 1S76. 

Thou, God of nations, wast, in battle's hour, 
Our Sliield, our Strength, our Helper, and our Tower; 
O'er all our paths Thy sheltering wings were spread ; 
Our feet, through all the years, Thy wisdom led. 

Joy from each grief, and strength from trials grew; 
God wrought our blessings from the woes we knew; 
Taught us, by Him preserved, in Him to stand, 
And made us walk in Freedom's promised land. 

So round the oak the tempests drive and beat — 
Winter's stern blasts and summer's fervid heat ; 
Time's mighty clock counts off its liundred years — 
Its verdant beauty still the monarch wears. 



As on the ages roll, in solemn sweep, 
With pillared cloud and fire our pathways keep; 
O'er all the land we love, in glory shine — 
Thine is the work, the praise be ever Thine. 







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CENTENNIAL HYMN. 

Newton, June, 1S76. 

How pure in zeal, how firm in faith 
Sternly the earl\' patriots stood, 

Ready to buy — conie life or deaths 
Their freedom at the price of blood. 

They scorned, in craven fear, to bend ; 

No tyrant-power could make them quail; 
' Our rights, as freemen, we defend. 

Our cause is God's — it cannot fail,' 

Slender in means, in numbers few. 

But high in aim and grand in thought, 

Nobly they spoke — brave men and true, 
And nobler deeds of valor wrous;ht. 



A century's march, through peace and blood, 
Has left their influence still impressed 

On all the hills tlu-ir footsteps trod. 
On fields their living presence blessed. 

Our fatliers' God, we own thy power, 
Thy mighty fiat made us free ; 

Our help, in that decisive hour. 

Still may we put our trust in thee. 




PAyL REVERE'S RIDE. 




MY NATIVE LAND. 

We wander far o'er land and sea, 

We seek tlie old and new, 
We test the lowly and the great, 

The many and the few ; 
O'er States at hand and realms remote, 

With curious quest we roam, 
But find the fairest spot on earth 

Just in our native home. 

We hold communion, high and sweet, 

With men, in ancient lore ; 
By day, by night, with reverent eyes, 

O'er volumes old we pore ; 
But Rome, and Greece, and orient lands, 

And heroes far awa}-, 
Great in their times, still lack the charm 

That lights our own to-day. 

We seek for landscapes, fair and grand, 

Seen through sweet summer haze, 
Helvetia's mountains, piled with snow, 

Italia's sunset rays ; 
And lake, and stream, and crag, and dell, 

And new and fairer flowers ; 
We own them rich, and fair — but not 

More grand, more fair than ours. 



AfV NATIVE LAND. 

With solemn air we tread, where trod 

The feet of ancient men 
And fill old palaces and courts 

With echoing sounds again; 
Temple and forum, bath and arch, 

Unearthed, in glory stand, 
These with admiring gaze we view, 

But crave our native land. 

We hear with jo}- the golden speech 

Of men of high renown. 
We see with praise the jewelled wealth 

Of sceptre, mace and crown ; 
But dearer far the golden words 

That made a people free ; 
And crown and sceptre pale before 

A nation's liberty. 

O land, where saint and pilgrim came, 

With loftiest purpose fraught, 
Nurtured in hardship, toil and faith, 

O land, Divinely taught, 
As streams the light from headland tower, 

Guide o'er the stormv sea, 
So hope, to all the oppressed, beams forth, 

Dear native land, from thee. 





LET ROCKS TIIEIIl SILENCE BREAIi. 




1,U>(^ MAY OL'll LAM> BE BKIOHT 
WITH freedom's holy LIGHT. 




WASHINGTON. 

February, 22, I863. 

Honored and loved — the patriot and the sage, 
Born for thine own and every coming age, 
Thy country's champion — P'reedom's chosen son — 
We liail thy birthday — glorious Washington. 

Nurtured in courage, industry and truth, 
Thy noble childhood and thy generous youth, 
Like spring's sweet blossoms on the sturdy tree, 
Gave early promise of the fruit to be ; 
And well it ripened, as the years rolled on. 
And stood in manhood, glorious Washington. 



Dark was the storm that gathered far and wide, 
When rose in threatening might the oppressor's pride; 
And men, brave hearted, stood, in battle strong. 
Resolved to avenge the right, and smite the wrong. 
Fierce was the fight, and many a hero fell ; 
Green are their laurels, and they earned them well ; 
Nursed in the lap of hardship — sternly taught — 
To value great ideas and high, free thought — 
With noble sacrifice they staked their all. 
To stand with Freedom, or with her to fall ; 
And many a patriot mother gave her son; — 
But one alone gave glorious Washington. 



WASHINGTON. 

Keep ye his memory green — preserve his fame: 

Live in his spirit; love liis honored name ; 

Teach lisping childhood how the warrior stood — 

A tower of strength, 'mid scenes of strife and blood; 

Let men and mothers to their infants tell 

How freedom triumphed and oppression fell, 

When he — the chieftain of the brave and free — 

Led on our troops to joy and victory. 

No son was his, to bear his cherished name — 

No son, thank God! to bring his father shame; 

But every patriot is a wortliy son 

To bear thy name and title, — Washington. 

They bear tlieir honors well ■ — these sons of ours — 
Trained by fierce fight to show sublimer powers ; 
Taught, like the eagle, when the storm beats high 
With stronger wing to cleave the threatening sk3^ 
And reach through raging winds the cliffs above, 
Where dwell serenely liberty and love; 
Grow brave, through toil, to bear our banners on. 
As he once bore them, — glorious Washington. 



■-. \ 





AT VALLEY FORGE. 




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OLl*UK WENDELL HOLMES. 

THE BOYS. 

December 13, 18S3. 

Where are the boys of earlier j^ears, 

Once known and loved so well ; 
Where childhood's ho]3es and childhood's fears, 

O Muse of history, tell ! 

Where are the noisy shouts that spoke 

In wild joy on the air? 
Where are the lips, in love which spoke — 

The echoes answer, Where ? 

Where are the ready eye and hand 

That made our greetings sweet ? 
Parted long since — the choice old band — 

Where will they ever meet ? 



Where are they ? Ask the manly face, 
White hairs and furrowed brow, 



THE BOYS. 

The veterans, with their antique grace — 
The boys are elders now. 

Roll back, roll back Lite's hastening tide, 
Nor count each passing year; 

Behold, their bows in strength abide, 
The ancient boys are here ! 



Doctor Oliver Weiulell H<ilnics, a classmate of Doctor Smith in Harvard University, in his poems for the annual 
class festival, is accustomed to speak of his associates at Harvard as " the boys." See liis poem for 1S59, entitled 
The Boys, in the Honscholtl Edit inn iA\')QC1or Holmes' Poems, jiage 213. This poem, which alludes in an attractive 
wav to several other members of the class, and also to Doctor Smith, is universally known and appreciated. 





LANI> WHERE MY FATHEHS DIED, 
IJINI) OF THE riLdlilMS' I'RIDE. 




THE SLEEP OF THE BRAVE. 

May 30, 1874. 

Breathe balmy airs, ye fragrant flowers, 
O'er every silent sleeper's head, 

Ye crystal dews and summer showers, 
Dress in fresh green each lowly bed. 

Strew loving offerings o'er the brave, 

Their country's joy, their country's pride. 

For us their precious lives they gave. 
For freedom's sacred cause they died. 

Each cherished name its place shall hold, 
Like stars that gem the azure sky ; 

Their deeds, on history's page enrolled, 
Are sealed for immortality. 



Long, where on glory's field they fell. 
May freedom's spotless banner wave ; 

And fragrant tributes, grateful, tell 

Where live the free, where sleep the brave. 




DECORATION DAY. 

Newton, May 30. 1S70. 

Strew blossoms, sweet blossoms o'er every creen erave, 
Where slumbers in glory the loyal and brave ; 
Let beauty and fragrance their memory bedew, 
The tribute unfeigned of the lovina; and true. 

The warblers of spring-time their requiem breathe, 
And sunbeams and shadows their catafalque wreathe, 
And softly they sleep in their peaceful repose, 
As slumbers at nightfall the dew-sprinkled rose. 

And memory shall treasure and keep every name — 
Their deeds are their record — immortal their fame; 
And flowers in their beauty shall hallow each bed. 
Like ivy o'er ruins, life's charm o'er the dead. 



O'er rock, vale and river, O long may the ji^alm 
Of freedom breathe sweetly, like wind thro' tiie palm, 
And blossoms, fair blossoms, bloom o\er each grave 
Where slumbers in glory the loyal and brave. 




O'ER ROCK. VALE AND RIVER O I-ONG MAV THE PSALM 

Of FREEDOM BREATHE SWFETLY, LIKE WIND THRO' THE PALM. 




THE STUDENT SOLDIERS. 

They fought on many a crimsoned field, 

They sleep in many a glen ; 
They marched to glory and to death, 

And came not home again ; 
But Science claims them for her roll — 

Her roll of honored men. 

Some in the sunny days of youth, 

And some in ripening age, 
Went forth with valiant hearts and hopes, 

To breast the conflict's rage ; 
And history every name records 

On her immortal page. 

Weep at the shrines where once they knelt. 

And where the heroes sleep ; 
Weep where the funeral pomp proceeds. 

At vacant firesides weep; 
When did thy sickle, mighty Death, 

So precious harvests reap .'' 



And sing a paan o'er their dust, 

A requiem for the brave; 
Sing hymns of cheerful melody 



7UIE STUDENT SOLDIERS. 

Abov'e each soldier's grave ; 
In solemn jo}-, with festal folds, 
Let the old banners wave. 

Freedom on every bloody field 

Through them new triumphs won ; 

Her honored wreaths are on the brow 
Of every favorite son ; 

And age is reckoned, not bv vears. 
But deeds of valor done. 

While Fame inscribes ten thousand names. 

Along her pillared nave. 
Of patriot sons and sires who sleep 

In glory's star-gemmed grave. 
Of all the list, fair Science claims 

The bravest of the brave. 



January 8, 1864. 





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ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



April i6, 1884. 



Grandeur and glory wait around the bed 

Where sleeps in lowly peace the illustrious dead ; 

He rose a meteor upon wondering men, 

But rose in strenoth, never to set aeain. 

A king of men, though born in lowly state, 

A man sincerely good and nobly great ; 

Tender, but firm ; faithful, and kind, and true, 

The Nation's choice, the Nation's savior, too ; 

Schooled through Life's early hardships to endure. 

To raise the oppressed, to save and shield the poor ; 

Prudent in counsel, honest in debate. 

Patient to hear and judge, patient to wait ; 

The calm, the wise, the witty and the proved, 

Whom millions honored, and whom millions loved ; 

Swayed by no baleful lust of pride or power, 

The shining pageants of the passing hour. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Led by no scheming arts, no selfisli aim. 
Ambitious for no pomp, nor wealth, nor fame, 
No planning hypocrite, no pliant tool, 
A high-born patriot, of Heaven's noblest school ; 
Cool and unshaken in the maddest storm, 
For in the clouds he traced the Almighty's form; 
Worn with the weary heart and aching head, 
More than the picket, with his ceaseless tread, 
He kept — as bound by some resistless fate — 
His broad, strong hand upon the lielm of State, 
Nor turned in fear his heart or hope away 
Till on the field his tent a ruin lay; — 
The tent a ruin! — but the owner's name 
Stands on the pinnacle of liuman fame 
Inscribed in lines of light, and nations see 
Through him the people's life and liberty. 

What high ideas, what noble acts he taught! 

To make men free in life, and limb, and thought, 

To rise, to soar, — to scorn the oppressor's rod. 

To live in grander life — to live for God ; 

To stand for justice, freedom and the right. 

To dare the conflict, strong in God's own misfht ; 

The methods taught by Him, by him were tried, 

And he, to conscience true, a martyr died. 

As the great sun pursues his heavenly way, 
And fills with light and joy the livelong day, 
Till, the full journey run, in glory dressed. 
He seeks his crimson couch beneath the west. 
So, with his labor done, our hero sleeps ; 
Above his tomb a ransomed Nation weeps, 
And grateful pagans o'er his ashes rise — 
Dear is his fame — his glory never dies. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Bring flowers — fresh flowers ; bring plumes with nodding crests 

To wreathe the tomb where our great hero rests ; 

Bring pipe and tabret, eloquence and song, 

And sound the loving tribute loud and long: 

A Nation bows, and mourns his honored name ; 

A Nation proudly keeps his deathless fame ; 

Let vale, and rock, and hill, and land, and sea, 

His memory swell — the anthem of the free. 




'•M^\\* LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

ill III III I II III III I ill 

Ssvi; 016 225 787 




